The Difference
by Elizabeth Goode
Summary: Harper angst! This is my first Andromeda fanfiction, and I was inspired to write it due to the way his character is being treated this season. Not that I'm complaining it leaves an opening for all kinds of great fanfiction! But, I do hope they resolve t
1. Default Chapter

**The Difference**

**By Elizabeth Goode**

**Disclaimer: No money has been made or lost due to the existence of this fic.**

**Spoilers: Andromeda, Season 5**

**Chapter 1**

Harper stared at Beka as she grimaced at the plate of food he set before her. She poked it with her fork, and then pushed it away. He barely heard her complaining as he took the offending dish away, couldn't even remember exactly what retort he had fired back at her. God, didn't she get it? Could she not see that everyone around her was just as thirsty, tired, and hungry as she was, if not more so? The others didn't have the luxury of the chef giving them the best of what was available. Even part of his own share. He was worried about her. She was looking thin and haggard. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her hair was losing its luster. For that matter, even Rhade and Dylan were looking like hell lately. And Trance - well, she was a shadow of her former self, not only in mind and spirit, but in body as well. If his formerly-purple-slightly-less-golden-of-late pixie lost one more pound, he was convinced she might blow away.

Sighing heavily, Harper took Beka's discarded meal back into the kitchen. If she wasn't going to eat it, he would have it later for himself. After all, there was no sense in wasting food. If he had learned anything from growing up on Earth, it was that it was best to eat when you had the opportunity. Not that he was hungry. Thinking about what had become of his friends – and, of himself – turned his stomach. Hell, looking out the window turned his stomach. It was too much like Earth. Sometimes, he thought that if Rev or even Tyr were here, things might be different. Perhaps Rev would have been able to provide comfort and wisdom. Perhaps Tyr would have been able to rally them to fight for their survival as a team, instead of trying their luck with every man, woman, Nietzschean, and formerly-purple-sort-of-amnesiac girl for themselves.

Harper gave a short chuckle. In a strange kind of way, Tyr had been the cheerleader of the Andromeda's crew. As damned pessimistic and freakin' Nietzschean as Tyr had been, there was no better reason to function through paralyzing fear for a solution to a potentially fatal problem than not wishing to wind up on the bad side of a Nietzschean whose upper arm was as big around as his skinny mudfoot waist.

Now he knew he was losing it. He, Seamus Zelazny Harper, was actually feeling nostalgic for a Magog and a Nietzschean. He suspected that he had been on the edge of losing it when Beka had first taken him on as crew on the Maru. Years of life on Earth had made him cynical, bitter, and unable to trust. Over time, Beka had helped to change that. She had saved his life, and for that he would always be grateful. Three years on Seefra, trying to save Rommie while working for a crazed geneticist had not done anything for his sanity. The only thing that had kept him sane had been his hope that his friends would come for him. Especially that Beka would come for him. She hadn't left him to die on Earth when Bobby would have done just that, and he had held onto his hope that she would save him from Seefra as well.

He sighed heavily, setting the unappetizing dish aside for later consumption. The difference had begun, he was convinced, with Seefra. Before Seefra, Beka had shown concern for him, as a part of her crew. She had laughed at his jokes – well, some of them, anyway. She had been protective of him, and of Trance and even Rev to some degree. Beka used to care what became of him, how he spent his time, what he thought about things. She had been a friend. Now, he understood the difference. She no longer considered him a friend, and that knowledge hurt more than his Magog infestation ever had. It hurt more than losing Rommie, and he hadn't been sure that anything could hurt that much. Dashing a tear from his eyes, he was momentarily amazed that there was enough moisture left in his body after the merciless Seefran suns had done their best to rob him of it to produce even one. He had to go back out there, had to pretend that he was all right with the strangers his friends had become. And, after that, he had a man to see about some water.


	2. The Difference, Chapter 2

Chapter 2 

Desperate. Miserable. Alone. Seamus Harper could not recall feeling worse. Hohne was dead. Again. And, he had been unable to save him. Again. When Hohne had died the first time, Harper had been devastated. He had done his best to save Hohne, but had not been able to keep him from falling into the slipstream core.

Harper didn't have many friends. Everyone he had known on Earth was probably dead by now. Rommie was … well, she wasn't exactly around. Beka barely noticed his presence these days, and he wasn't entirely convinced that she would even shout out a warning if a Magog was behind him. He had never been particularly close to Rhade, which was a good thing, from what he could tell about the Nietzschean these days. If they had been close, it would have been even sadder to see how he had gone from a proud, fierce Admiral to a petty paid thug. Trance – he wasn't even sure that she still remembered him, so infrequently had she spoken to him in her most recent incarnation. The one person who had been a comfort to him during his three long years on Seefra had forsaken him in favor of Dylan. It now seemed that Doyle spent her time trying to hang out with anyone but Harpe. Dylan spent most of his time scheming to find a way out of Seefra, and when he did notice Harper, it was because he needed something. Case in point – the teleportation device. Hohne's death. Losing a friend again. The same friend he had lost once before.

_The Universe really does hate me_, he thought as he ran his hand experimentally above the metallic cube in which Hohne had left his last message. _Best friends. For all the good it did you, Hohne._ Harper's anger drained away slowly as he sat there in the very room where he had last worked with the brave Perseid. Anger took too much out of him these days. The heat of anger and the heat of the Seefran suns together was just too much for one mudfoot body to take.

Dylan hadn't allowed Hohne to die because he wanted to, Harper knew that. Had this occurred under more normal circumstances – not in Seefra, with the Andromeda fully functional – he would have been better able to understand that. But, coupled with his friends' betrayal, the unfairness of his having spent three years on Seefra when the others had spent far less, and losing one of his few friends, it was too much. He wanted to cry, to yell, scream, throw something, hit someone, anything to make the loneliness stop.

When the Perseid had first entered his workspace, it had been all Harper could do not to hug him. He wasn't entirely convinced that Hohne was real. It had to be some kind of weird, Seefran trick, like Beka's dead father. He shook his head. He still hadn't figured that one out. When he had realized that Hohne was real, that his friend had come back from the dead, that he had a friend here in Seefra, one who would talk to and appreciate him, his urge to hug could no longer be denied. He had known that Perseids weren't exactly huggers, but to his credit, Hohne had not pulled away. The awkward pat on his back had been the only physical gesture of affection he had received from an organic lifeform in three years.

Beka and Trance were on their way back in the Maru. He wondered if they knew yet what had happened. He wasn't holding his breath that either of them would even seek him out to speak with him, let alone offer any sort of comfort. Then again, he allowed himself a small shred of hope that they would.


	3. The Difference, Chapter 3

**The Difference  
Elizabeth Goode  
Chapter 3  
Still not making a dime off of this gig ...  
Spoilers for very recent eps of Andromeda**

When the Maru had landed safely, Beka and Trance made their way to Command, where they were briefed by Dylan on all that had transipired in their absence.After that, they retired to their respective quarters to shower and rest. Thus,it was hours after their return that Beka thought of Harper. When Dylan had informed her of Hohne's death, she had been too frazzled from her own near-death experience to give his words much thought. All she had managed was a short, "He'll get over it. He always does." Now that she was back on the Andromeda clean, and somewhat relaxed, the implications of the events that had only recently occurred began to sink in. Hohne had died. Again. What would that have done to Harper?

Beka sat up in her bed, agitated. Harper had not been himself since their reunion on Seefra. She had been more than a little bit freaked out at the way he had kept Rommie 'alive', but now that she thought about it, it made sense. He had been here for three years, alone. Thinking that his friends were dead, that what was left of Rommie might be all he ever had ever again. The way he had been acting was far more similar to the way he had been on Earth, when Bobby had hired him. To the way he had been those first few weeks on the Maru. Skittish, paranoid, and kind of ... dirty. She realized that none of them were smelling exactly fresh these days, with the Seefran sun making them sweat and no regular access to sanitary conditions the way it had been on the Andromeda when she was in peak condition. Harper seemed to have reverted, and that had frightened Beka.

More out of habit than anything else, Beka rose from her bed and began her search for Harper. She started with his quarters, but found that he was not there. She checked Hydroponics next, with no luck. Upon first glance, he was not in the Machine Shop either, but experience told her to wait. Sure enough, she heard a slight sigh and a shuffling sound as though a sleeping body had rolled over. Harper was here, and he was asleep. She moved forward silently, then thought better of it. If he was sleeping, he probably needed the rest. She was off the hook, she didn't have to talk to him after all …

The sound of a weapon charging, ready to fire, changed her mind. Instinct kept her quiet, frozen to the spot.

"Who's there? Drop your weapons!" The edge of panic in the young engineer's voice was breaking her heart. Was this how he had lived those three years alone in this hellhole of a system?

"Harper, it's Beka. I just came to see how you're doing, that's all. I saw you were asleep, and I didn't want to bother you, so I was leaving. I don't even have any of my weapons drawn."

He turned the lights on, and blinked sleepily. He set down his gun and sat on one of his lab tables. "Sorry, Beka. Old habits. Well, not so old, I guess. Three-year old habits, anyway."

Beka tapped her foot impatiently. "Well?"

Confused, he rubbed his eyes and dimmed the lights. "Well, what?"

"Well, how are you doing?"

He shook his head. "Not so good, Beka. No, I'm not doing very well at all. Thanks for asking."

The hard, sarcastic edge to his voice was starting to piss her off, but she swallowed her anger.

"You see, Boss – I've been here for three years. I thought you were dead. All I had to keep me company was a crazed geneticist and some Rommie bits. And Doyle, who would now rather hang out with even Rhade than with me. So, not so good, huh?" He didn't give her a chance to reply. "Then, you guys show up, treat me like dirt, ignore me, etc., and then I find out that Hohne didn't die saving my worthless mudfoot hide like I thought he had. Then, Hohne did die, again, and - and so, I am most definitely not all right!"

Beka knew what she should do. What she would have done back on the Maru, even back on the Andromeda. She would have hugged him, messed with his hair a little, called him 'shorty' or 'Seamus', things only she could get by with. She would have talked to him long into the night if he needed it, brought him a can of Sparky Cola or a beer. Now, even moving closer to him felt strained, unnatural. She was beginning to suspect that it wasn't Harper who was the problem here, but she didn't know what to do about it, wasn't sure what the difference was. In the old days, if she had been unavailable, Trance would have sought out Harper to give comfort and companionship, but she didn't seem to even remember that he existed most of the time. In fact, Beka wasn't sure that Trance had even said anything to Harper at all in the time they had been on Seefra together. Nope, the ball was definitely in her court.

"I'm – sorry, Harper. Hohne was a good guy. Strange sense of humor, but well - he WAS a chinhead, after all."

Harper nodded. "Perseid humor is pretty weird. I bet they'd love the Three Stooges."

She frowned. "Who are the Three Stooges?"

"The Stooges were an old Earth comedy act. I'll show you sometime, if we ever get out of this godawful place."

Beka didn't move closer. She didn't touch him, not even his hair, but she did smile. "I'd like that. And, don't you dare say 'if', Seamus. You say 'when'. Got it, genius?"

He returned the smile. "Got it, Boss."


End file.
